Don't Look Back
by Burnedtoasty
Summary: TF2k7: Three Autobots bunkered in a hole, waiting for back up that may or may not arrive in time, if at all.


**Disclaimer**: _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Hasbro, and the respective artists/writers/et cetera. No infringement intended._

**Continuity**: TF2K7 (Transformers 2007 movie-verse)

**Characters**: Original cast. Backtrack, Potshot, 'First Aid'-cameo.

**Warnings**: Violence.

**Author's Note**: Criticism encouraged, technical points preferable.

--

"By the Allspark, what I'd do for a good oil swill right now," Mourning that very lack, Backtrack rocked back on his aft, wringing his scorched hands anxiously as the medic continued to tug and pull on his leg joints, realigning the warped metal. His face contorted above his mouth grill as the circuitry sparked and rivets crackled, though he felt nothing of it, and kept his optics turned well away from the grisly scene. "The supply line has to get through soon, right? Support'll come through. They can't just leave us here."

"Stop moving," The medic admonished, working his fingers to pull a half-melted wire tight, snipping it from its mooring with exact precision. He frowned speculatively at the freed piece of plastic, then let it drop to the ground, digging through their depleted supplies for a similar size.

Backtrack spared him a peeved look, and with great deliberateness ceased his rocking, focusing greatly fatigued, haunted optics on the crouched Autobot's crest. "Forgive me," He spat. "I'm a little nervous. Hordes of 'Cons do that to me," He grunted rudely at the end, ventilators clicking dryly to underscore his acerbic timbre.

"Do you _want_ to walk straight again?" The medic snapped, glaring hard at a stubborn seam that had bent inward. Experimentally, he hooked his fingers under the sharp edge of twisted metal, yanking firmly. It gave, marginally, still dug into a mass of exposed internal circuitry. "Grunts," Sighed the bowed Autobot, nigh inaudible to either of his companions, exasperated.

"Don't need it to be perfect. Just enough to get me moving when support shows up, the slaggers."

"They're not coming," A droll, tired voice rose from behind him, followed by the soft '_plunk_' of compression rounds leaving a sniper barrel. There was a muted curse as the shot evidently went wide, and the quiet rattle of debris being shifted when a similar shot screeched through the previously occupied gap.

"What? Why not? We radioed in," Backtrack yowled, shooting the medic-bot a flustered glare as he tried to shush the ground-pounder's outburst. "They said they'd be here in a few kliks."

Again, debris rattled as the third of their trio moved down, sliding along the pile of scrap and causalities, gun held like a lover in his arms. "We're pinned down in a dead sector, with Decepticons crawling over every nanometer in any direction," He said with brutal apathy, scuttling along the edge of their piecemeal bunker to crouch behind Backtrack. His knuckles rapped gently between the grunt's distinctive shoulder cannons, a comradely gesture quite lost on the despairing mechanism.

"They're coming in a few kliks," Backtrack repeated with the blind denial of the hopeless. "They'll break through. They have to."

"I'd like to see _you_ try to get through _that_, tread-head. Wall to wall Decepticons, as far as the optic can perceive."

"No, no, they can't expect us to hold this city for them by ourselves!" Frantic for optimism, Backtrack twisted about to give the sniper a reproachful stare. "We can't stay here without support. Why would they think we could? They need to help us evacuate, right? They _can't_ just leave us here."

The sniper remained quiet, thumbing the safety of his beloved weapon with a deeply contemplative air. It was answer enough.

Backtrack sputtered out an incredulous denial, on the edge of hysteria. "Potshot? C'mon, please, you know they know we're here. We radioed in before the line went dead. They said they were coming."

"Yeah. Yeah, they know," The sniper intoned dryly, voice curiously flat. He turned his optics to the passive sky above, the stars streaked with smoke and ashes. "They know exactly where we are, and what we're doing, and they don't care. We're just soldiers." Something that might have been meant as a smile twisted his lips, and he chuckled, as if remembering some private joke. "Besides, this is a doomed city. Not vital strategically, it's resources burned out ages ago. It's too out of the way to warrant going back for." He turned his resigned gaze over to the panicky, scorched 'bot, a shade of bitterness tingeing his otherwise flat tone. "We're just causalities."

The medic paused in his useless ministrations, hand trembling slightly, before his firmed his expression back into professional detachment and continued on with his work. "Hold still," He murmured needlessly, something flinty and hard in his optics as he came to terms with his expendability.

"They said they'd send help. The lieutenant – Prowl, yeah, he said he'd send in relief," Backtrack cried, despair overwhelming him. "They said, they _promised_. We can't be completely overrun, not yet. There has to be someone out there to help us."

Potshot smiled grimly, waving toward the badly burned and broken expanse of their foxhole. "Go up and take a look, if you don't believe me. 'Cons would be happy to give you a more direct answer."

As if to confirm his statement, a scattering of light weapons fire broke the temporary quiet, ricocheting off the wall to spring as trails of fire against the perpetual darkness. The bullets fell back to the ground with sharp plinks and pitters, lost amid the discarded cartages and maimed cadavers that had once constituted most of their unit as soon as they landed.

In tense silence, the trio stared at the ridge of hastily erected barricade, pensive for a more invasive strike. But no metallic monstrosities made themselves known, and quiet fell over the city once again.

"They don't know how many of us are left. It's the only thing holding them off," the medic – First Aid, wasn't it? – said calmly, with a sense of certainty that neither of his companions could bear to argue against. "They're just biding their time, waiting to see if we try to break through before they go on the attack. Once they gather together enough for a second sweep, we're done."

"By the Allspark," Backtrack swore, optics contracting. "No, no, I don't, we, they said… oh, Primus, _Primus_," He mewled, hunching in upon himself, unwillingly turning his gaze over to the heaped piles of their dead, the corpses their only shield against the looming horde outside. "Not like this. No, no, not like this, not _here_. Everything was going so well. I can't end up like them. Like the others. I didn't get through Vos for _this_."

"Oh, I don't think we'll end up like them," Potshot said with dark airiness, all but caressing his meticulously maintained weapon even as he jammed a thumb back toward the mass of corpses.

"Why not? Prisoners?" A gloomy sort of hope pervaded the smaller soldier's voice, and he turned his optics upon the smiling sniper, desperate for some prospect for survival. Even life in a dank hole was better than the hard reality offered by the horde beyond their shallow bunker.

"I hope not," First Aid broke in, leaving off the leg to lean back and stretch protesting gears. "I've seen the poor mechs who lived through that Pit. I'd rather take a clean shot to the Spark – it'd be a kinder fate."

"No, I expect we're not ranked enough for capture to be any worry," Potshot, after a moment of contemplation, shifted to settle fully upon the blasted torso of a former companion, propping his rifle against his inner thigh. Conversationally, he elucidated their fate. "They'll pour over the wall. We might take the first and second forerunner, if we're quick enough. Not likely, but there's a small chance. They'll be shooting as they come in, blind, but a clean strafe would take out most of a tight packed unit, and I figure they've got us fairly pinned as far as maneuvering room goes. Soon enough they'll overwhelm us, and, if we're lucky, they'll gun us down before they realize there's only three left."

"How is that _lucky_?" Squawked Backtrack, horrified.

"It would be faster," First Aid nodded slowly, catching on to Potshot's logical pessimism. "We're spare parts, 

if nothing else, for their injured. And it's like the field medics say: the more recent the use, the better the parts will run. I've heard of it before, when the far outposts fell."

"More recent…" Realization dawned, and with its arrival, fresh terror. Backtrack squealed in protest, scrambling back from the placid medic. "_Online_? They'd take parts w-while we're _online_?"

"Oh, yeah. The 'Cons don't have any scruples about it. Enjoy it, if I'm any sort of judge. And if not for parts, hey, we might be used for terror tactics, even. They never let anything go to waste, the slaggers." It might have been an affectionate hatred that colored his words, though his comrades didn't care to delve into that pit.

"What do you mean?" First Aid asked, intrigued despite himself.

"You haven't heard?"

"I don't _want_ to hear," Backtrack mewled, drawing in upon himself.

Ignoring the whimpering ground-pounder, the sniper grinned, pleased to have been asked. "Stick us out somewhere nice and open, maybe before a bunker or something, and use us as bait to lure 'em out. That's how my first post went down, all nice and tidy, as you please."

Backtrack shifted nervously, blurting. "What happened?" And regretted it immediately after, as a sadistic, gleeful gleam shone in his comrade's optics.

"Oh, it's awful. Real awful. Let me tell you," Potshot, warming to his subject, took up the morbid train of thought eagerly, settling himself comfortably and leaning forward in perverse earnestness. His vocal output dropped to a whisper, as if he shared some great secret, and his companions drifted closer, fascinated. "It started out small enough. Our supply trains just stopped coming, one day. Got cut off, don't know what happened to the crew. But, it's war, and these things happen. We bunkered in for the long wait, calling the loss in to command. They said they'd send someone as soon as they could, when the line was clear." He took a moment to stare pointedly at Backtrack, who had the grace to look away. Nodding approvingly, Potshot continued, hissing,"Basic power went next. Then the comm. links. Our CMO went AWOL, too, after he tried to see if he could get a look at the near generator, him and our sec-IC. We were all quarantined right after, expecting some big attack or something. We didn't see any enemies, though. Never saw the slaggers once. Knew they were there, of course, but you never _saw_ anybody." His optics dimmed, and both medic and grunt knew he now was lost to some distant time and place, beyond their comprehension. His voice was a thin, reedy rasp, and his hands were tight clenched around the barrel of his shining gun.

"Then… then _they_ just showed up one day, on the horizon. Left out, all trussed up and ready.

"Four soldiers, an officer, and a few neutrals caught trying to get off planet before the main force hit 'em; that was the first group. Out there, crying out for help, pleading for us to go save 'em. A few tried to go out and see, got pressed back by booby traps – explosives and rigged triggers and such. So we waited it out, until the dark half of the rotation. Thought it would be easier under cover. But… when it went black out, and even our primary sniper's optics weren't strong enough to see all the way over…" A small tremor worked its way down his body, and his expression fell to a surreal detachment, the only safe respite for a war-scarred soldier. "The screaming kept us all awake, at first; got the new recruits jittery. Shook up our CO something awful. 'Cons know how to draw it out, you know? Make it last. Make it _hurt_." Contemplatively, his fingers stroked the barrel, tracing out old gouges and repair marks, a history and a testament to the weapon's hard use. Sighing, Potshot turned his near-black optics upon his rapt audience, intoning, "We'd take shots, in the beginning, just to rile the glitches up, see if we could startle them or something. Make them more real, less… less unknown, I guess. But we were too far off, and we went wide out, and they didn't ever stop.

"After a while, though, you got inured to the sound. Became background noise. Everyday stuff. But you never got used to the stopping, when it went quiet, all of sudden. Kept you up on your downtime. Went on forever. Sometimes I wanted them to start again, just so there'd be some sound, y'know?

"Later, it was a relief when the silence fell. We started just hoping they'd just shut up and die.

"But that quiet, that fragging _quiet_ – we started shooting at the captives, just to make 'em _stop_ it. Had to make them all keep quiet, and stay that way, or we'd all got crazy. 'Cons thought it was hilarious. They'd pitch a few new ones, every now and then, up high, and wait for us to plink them. We always did, even 

though we knew it was what they wanted. The bodies be gone during the shift change, whisked away to wherever, and someone else would be in their place. Started to be a game. See if you could catch the 'cons while they were moving them." He paused. "Nobody ever won.

"Our CO found out soon enough, and put up an ammo ration to save up what we had left until 'help arrived'. Punished the few he caught, as some sort of example. I suppose he knew we were all in on it, wanted to make an impression before it got out of hand.

"He didn't get it, though. We couldn't take that quiet. Always stopped you cold, no matter what. Someone slagged him not three cycles later, knocked his head clean off." Potshot grinned, and laughed softly, unnervingly, his optics flicking back and forth restlessly. "Our lieutenant disappeared right after. Never found out what happened to him. Maybe he got spooked, lit out before the same could happen to him, or maybe someone just shut him down. Never really found out; nobody ever asked." He took a moment to stare off into the past, hand convulsing around the comforting barrel of his rifle. Taking a steadying inhalation cycle, he continued with deceptive insouciance, ignoring the open revulsion on the face his audience members.

"Sixty cycles in, we got stupid. Went a little stir crazy, I guess. Who wouldn't, living with what we did?

"Some of us thought we could break out, just rush the 'cons and make a dash for Tyger Pax, right? Next city-state over, back to headquarters. There weren't that many of them, we figured. They would have rushed us if they had the numbers.

"But we were wrong; should've known the 'cons wouldn't be that dense. Way I figure it, they didn't want to spend all that effort and ammo _taking_ the bunker. It was too heavily fortified, even for a horde. Would've been a costly victory, and for not much more than a few shaking 'bots like ourselves, not really worth it. They were hiding out in the pits, patient as you please, just twiddling their thumbs 'til we walked out all nice and pretty for them, leaving the door wide open. And we did. Slag us all for idiocy, we did.

"First wave took out our middle. Broke our momentum.

"We got scared, scattered, dissolved ranks. Thought we could get away individually. Every mech for himself. They hunted us down, all of us. You'd hear the cry, the shriek, and then the quiet. I hated the quiet. It was too loud, too sharp.

"I didn't see him, at first. Big. Real big. His first shot went wide, just fried my arm," One hand twitched toward a shoulder, in a memory of pain. "I got him with my last armor piercing round. Perfect shot, even though my hands were shaking like nothing else. Right through the laser core. That's where I got this beauty from. Snagged it off his body, ran for Tyger Pax. Never looked back. Can't look back," His voice drifted, lowering to a hoarse whisper. "Get you if you look back."

He turned a sudden, demented smile on the silent duo beside him, shifting about to stare at them head on. "Guess they didn't want to take me out, though. They could have, easy. But had to have someone tell the story, right? Nobody would know unless someone survived."

"D… d-did you? Tell anybody," Backtrack managed, his vocalizer straining to even make the barest sound.

"I never told my superior officers. Just said we got overrun, and we had to abandon the base. Suppose I'm paying for that now. They have to finish the job they started. Can't blame 'em. Didn't do much to deserve it."

"I suppose I ought to check inventory," First Aid said abruptly, stooping and turning off to head toward the far end of their fortified death trap, disguising his tremulous quaking with the movement.

"Oh," Backtrack said very faintly, his optics dimming as he abruptly hunched in upon himself, curling around his waist to sit with his head resting upon his knees, arms pulled tight around his chest as if afraid he'd fly apart without their grip. "Oh."

Earlier solemnity forgotten, Potshot husked out a chuckle, amused. "Oh, what?"

"You're all a bunch of loonies. A bunch of loonies, and I'm going to die here with you." Backtrack whimpered, shuddering. "It can't end here. It _can't_. I didn't do anything to anybody. Why do I have to die?" 

His voice broke on a plaintive whimper, trailing off into silence.

"I said that too, once upon a time. But, well, we all have to go sometime, way I see it. Doesn't matter if you run and hide, or even if you don't look back," Potshot said carefully, looking again to the obscured stars. "Somewhere, sometime, it'll catch up with you." He reached out and patted Backtrack consolingly on the shoulder, rising and turning away. "I've been running a long time, now. I think it's time I stopped."

Backtrack shivered again, nuzzling his face against his knees. He heard the soft plink of an air compression round, a sharp thud, and the clank of deadweight falling.

Cautious, the quivering mechanism reached behind him, and his questing fingers encountered shiny, smooth metal, and the warmth of a recently fired weapon. Reverently, he drew the gun up close, cradling it in his arms like a lover.

He wondered how fast he could run, and how far until it caught up with him.

The rifle glinted once, in the darkness, and kept its silence.


End file.
